France`s Several Mitterrands Lead In Absentia

PARIS — With an effect rather like that of the Zen master`s one hand clapping, the French presidential campaign is launched with only one man running. Only one yet running, of the principal candidates-Prime Minister Jacques Chirac.

The second conservative candidate, Raymond Barre, has not yet declared, but will soon do so. The missing man is President Francois Mitterrand. But if he is not (yet) running, he is making the running. Mitterrand dominates the race by his absence.

He says he will announce his decision in good time. Posters, though, are appearing: a trusting baby reaches out to touch a (presidential?) hand, above it the words ``Generation Mitterrand.`` What is this Mitterrand Generation?

Could another Socialist lead it? Is Mitterrand even a Socialist?

A sardonic student of Mitterrand`s career, journalist Catherine Nay, identifies several Francois Mitterrands who have taken one another`s place during the seven years of his presidency. He took office as Francois-Leon Blum, leader of a triumphant popular front of the Left. He will leave office, she says, as Francois-Augustus, a benevolent Caesar.

Along the way he has been Francois-Reagan, after abandoning Socialist economics for the marketplace, and-as one of his enemies adds-Francois Petain, father of the nation. Nay says he has one more personage to assume, that of Francois de Gaulle, ``taking over the Gaullist heritage in its totality.``

Mitterrand has a clear lead in polls on public approval, and in most polls on intentions to vote. It nonetheless can be asked how this sympathy really will be expressed in the presidential vote itself. That will take place in two turns at the end of April and beginning of May.

Not only is Mitterrand liked, but for most of the last two years

``cohabitation`` between Mitterrand and a conservative parliament and prime minister has enjoyed public approval. People seem to have felt the arrangement useful to check the excesses of both Left and Right. With the passage of time, however, the disadvantages have become increasingly apparent. There has also been a little-remarked poll indicating that the same people who approve of Mitterrand think him too old to run again. He is 72.

If he were to run and to be re-elected, Mitterrand would have to continue to coexist with the Right, or to divide it. He could name a centrist or a nonpartisan figure as new prime minister. He could even name former President Valery Giscard d`Estaing his prime minister. Mitterrand is master of parliamentary maneuver and combination. Perhaps he could divide and dominate. That he will run in April, and win in May, is the assumption generally made in France today. Yet it is possible the French will decide to write an alternate ending, if only because this one is so predictable. It is possible that they are bored with cohabitation, and that when summer begins the French will have a different president.